The Orchard Launches New Video Distribution Service

NEW YORK (Orchard/ www.theorchard.com) - The Orchard, the world's leading distributor and marketer of independent music, today announced the launch of a new digital video distribution service. Already the largest distributor of digital music in the world, The Orchard brings to the digital video marketplace its industry leadership in marketing and distributing digital content, and its global network of offices and affiliates operating in every global music territory to source video content and in turn, sell The Orchard's offering into local products and services.

The Orchard, founded in 1997, was the pioneering distributor of digital music. Presently, the company represents more than 700,000 songs in its growing catalogue, and distributes this music to more than 125 digital music stores and to over 200 mobile phone carriers globally.

"While the digital video marketplace is still in its infancy, the future for video looks even more promising than the digital music market looked five years ago," said Greg Scholl, chief executive of The Orchard and managing director of Dimensional Associates, the company that owns The Orchard, eMusic and Dimensional Music Publishing. "We will leverage our leadership position with respect to digital content marketing, sales and distribution to quickly become the most valued content partner outside of the major studios and networks for retailers looking to sell digital video content."

In addition to a treasure trove of music videos sourced from the thousands of independent labels which The Orchard represents, The Orchard's additional video content partners at launch include C3 ("Three Stooges" TV episodes), Troma Entertainment, ("The Toxic Avenger" films, "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's "Cannibal the Musical", and a number of other B-Movie classics), the largest and best catalogue of karaoke videos from Sound Choice, and Acrobat's catalogue of new British indie bands, early live jazz videos, classic sports footage and cartoons. Similar to what The Orchard has accomplished in the digital music space, it will aggressively market and merchandise video content wherever it's sold digitally-including new and emerging video stores from iTunes, Google, MusicNet and Yahoo! as well as video-for-mobile-devices including 3 and MobileStreams.

John Cooper, Managing Director of Acrobat Music said, "All video content- not just major studio films and network television shows-is potentially lucrative. Over the past two years, The Orchard has been pivotal in helping Acrobat to establish itself a significant player in the digital market place and breathed new life into my extensive music catalogue, so I am excited that they are developing a presence in the digital video market. Acrobat represents a number of significant film and program libraries and we are confident that The Orchard is poised to dominate the digital video distribution space."
The Orchard will also offer its video clients innovative stand-alone video stores that will offer each company's catalogue of videos to their fanbases.